


Good Enough for Someone

by bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Blood, Blood and Injury, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Past Abuse, Paul Blofis is the best stepdad/father figure, Percy gets hurt and tries to patch himself up... because that's all he's ever known, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stitches, Tending to injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25581295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies/pseuds/bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies
Summary: Paul was quiet for a minute on the other side of the bathroom door. Percy expected him to walk away, but he didn’t.“Percy?” There was something in his voice that Percy couldn’t identify. Something like concern, mixed with something like fear… something that let Percy know he had truly and royally fucked up. He felt hyper-aware of every sound, from the dripping of the facet to the shifting weight of the person outside the door, his mind spinning as he tried to map Paul’s position like he was in battle. He heard the tiny, barely perceivable sound of fingertips brushing the doorknob, and it made him want to throw himself out the window and flee to the fire escape. Especially at Paul’s next words: “Can I open the door?”Percy bit his already-split lip, not even caring at the pain the action brought. He stared up at the fluorescent light above him. He scrubbed at his eyes, ignoring the dull flare of pain from the bruise there. He didn’t realize he was crying until the salt stung his wounds.“Percy?” Paul called his name again.“Yeah,” Percy sucked in a deep breath, even as a broken rib made his chest feel tight. “I… I guess I could use some help."
Comments: 27
Kudos: 249





	Good Enough for Someone

**Author's Note:**

> Hi and welcome back to “projection hurt/comfort” time. I wrote most of this in one day and have only re-read it a few times to self check (no beta we die like men) so I apologize if there are mistakes. Kinda just needed to get it out, ya know?
> 
> Title comes from “Good Kid” from the Lightning Thief Musical soundtrack. Didn’t quite inspire this fic but I realized later that it kinda fits.
> 
> (Set at some indeterminate time between-ish the end of Heroes of Olympus and Trials of Apollo)
> 
>  **TW for blood, injuries, allusions to PTSD and referenced past abuse.** And one instance of the R-word (r*tarded) being used in reference to something said to Percy by the kids who beat him up.

Percy figured no one would be home when he made it back to the apartment. His mom was at work until the evening, Estelle would be at day care, and Paul would be at work. He would have a couple of hours to patch himself up, change his clothes, and hopefully wash the blood out so that he could erase any evidence of injury before his family got home.

Or so he thought.

Percy had just sat himself down on the closed lid of the toilet with the first aid kit balanced on the edge of the bathtub, tweezers in hand and gingerly rolling up his shirt sleeve to bare the glass-riddled skin of his arm, when he heard the jingle of keys in the front door lock. A moment later, he heard the cheery humming of his stepdad followed by the sound of the door closing and locking once more, and a couple of thunks as he took off his shoes. Panic gripped Percy and he quickly got to his feet, limping over to shut the bathroom door as quietly as possible. 

Paul must have heard the soft click of the door, though, because Percy heard him call out, “Percy? That you?”

 _Styx…_ “Yeah,” Percy called back with a wince. “Just got home from school, sorry.” The apology slipped out of him without him meaning to; apologizing for being in his own house was a habit he was pretty sure he had picked up around Gabe, and it was hard to break even after so many years. 

“No worries. Just making sure it’s not a burglar,” Paul sounded unconcerned. Good, Percy didn’t need him finding out about this. 

He lifted his gaze to look at himself in the mirror. A handful of years ago, before he found out he was a demigod, he might have been horrified at the sight ー dark purple and black bruising around his eye and nose, dirt and blood smeared across his skin, thick half-dried blood coagulated where it had streamed out his nose and dripped all down the front of his shirt… not to mention the shards of glass embedded in his right forearm and the scrapes on his arm, shoulder, and knees. He should have felt shocked at the sight of his injuries in the mirror, but after everything he had been through in the past several years, he could only muster up a dull sense of resignation. The only thing he cared about was his family not finding out while he methodically treated his own injuries. His mother, naturally, he didn’t want to worry. His baby sister, he didn’t want to frighten when he looked, from a mortal perspective, so horrifying. And Paul? Well, Percy just didn’t want to bother him. It wasn’t Paul’s job to take care of him; Percy was a grown-ass seventeen year-old demigod. Taking care of himself was second nature at this point.

With that thought, he set to work. He cataloged his wounds with a clinical, almost detached sort of eye and determined that the long laceration that was still sluggishly bleeding was his top priority, then the glass, then the broken nose. It was a little hard to do everything one-handed, but he had more than enough practice stitching himself up. With no small amount of pain, he managed to suture the laceration and then got started picking the glass out of the surrounding, more shallow wounds so that he could bandage the whole site. He was distantly aware of the sound of Paul puttering around in the kitchen and the sound of cookware clattering over his humming. Percy wasn’t sure if noticing every sound in his surroundings and being able to visually map a person’s movements from their footsteps was something he picked up from demigod training or from even before that. Either way, it, too, was second nature to him.

Percy grit his teeth as he pulled out an especially deep piece of glass and dropped it on the counter with the rest, all of them glittering like rubies and pink diamond fragments. He was starting to feel light-headed and lowered himself to sit on the cold tile floor, impatient and infuriated with himself; he was more than used to blood, and it shouldn’t affect him anymore. He hadn’t even lost all that much. He had been in far worse situations… 

Footsteps outside the door made him freeze, and some deep-rooted instinct made him zero in on the sound, waiting with bated breath for Paul to pass by and keep walking down the hallway. He didn’t; he stopped and stood outside the door, and Percy’s panic mounted. 

A soft, hesitant knock on the door made him jump, and his panic turned to dread. “You okay in there, bud? Been kind of a while…”

“I’m fine,” Percy’s throat felt tight, and it was only his years of practice at making his voice sound normal that let him get the words out. 

Paul didn’t say anything for several long moments. Percy had to force himself to breathe ー he was too lightheaded as it was. But even as he made himself inhale and exhale in measured breaths, he made a conscious effort to do so silently. He couldn’t let him know anything was wrong.

“Are you really?” There was something off about Paul’s voice, and Percy felt his gut grow cold. “I mean, if it was a bad burrito or something, I’ll leave you be…” he trailed off a little, and Percy heard something like shifting cloth and the pop of joints, like he was bending down to look at something. “But, there’s a couple drops of what looks like blood out here on the floor.”

Percy’s eyes fell shut as regret and shame washed over him. Fuck. He wasn’t careful enough. He fucked up. “I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up.” His voice sounded hollow.

Paul was quiet for a minute. Percy expected him to walk away, but he didn’t.

“Percy?” There was something in his voice that Percy couldn’t identify. Something like concern, mixed with something like fear… something that let Percy know he had truly and royally fucked up. He felt hyper-aware of every sound, from the dripping of the facet to the shifting weight of the person outside the door, his mind spinning as he tried to map Paul’s position like he was in battle. He heard the tiny, barely perceivable sound of fingertips brushing the doorknob, and it made him want to throw himself out the window and flee to the fire escape. Especially at Paul’s next words: “Can I open the door?”

Percy bit his already-split lip, not even caring at the pain the action brought. He stared up at the fluorescent light above him. A bubble of adrenaline and panic inflated in his chest, a feeling he was used to in the heat of battle, but had been a long time since he had felt in his own home. All at once, he felt small again, like he was twelve years old and trying to hide bruises from his mom. But this was different ー this wasn’t his mom, who had seen him at his lowest, who had lived through his lowest _with_ him. This was Paul, his stepdad, who had known Percy only a couple of years. Paul was nice, and Percy knew he cared about him, but Paul was still practically a stranger. They had family dinners together, and took Estelle to the park, and watched movies, but he was still a stranger to _this part_ of Percy’s life. Even at the battle of Manhattan, he had seen Percy in heroic Son-of-Poseidon mode, not post-fight broken demigod mode. And Percy had been hoping to keep it that way. 

Percy scrubbed at his eyes, ignoring the dull flare of pain from the bruise there. He didn’t realize he was crying until the salt stung his wounds. 

“Percy?” Paul called his name again.

“Yeah,” Percy pushed a hand through his hair and gripped the strands hard, using the pinpoints of pain to ground himself. He sucked in a deep breath, even as a broken rib made his chest feel tight. “I… I guess I could use some help.” He didn’t think he could stand up again. Not with the weight of his failure sitting heavy on his shoulders.

He heard the quiet click of the door easing open, and finally opened his eyes and looked up to find Paul Blofis ー perfect father/stepfather/husband/mortal Paul Blofis ー looking down at him ー cut-up, bleeding, bruised teenager Percy Jackson. Paul’s eyes widened and he inhaled sharply at the sight, and that stung Percy worse than the glass in his arm. 

Paul slipped inside and closed the bathroom door before dropping to a knee before Percy. He opened his mouth, and Percy braced himself for the “ _what happened?_ ” that would surely come. What Paul said, though, was “what do you need?”

Percy blinked, taken aback. No demands for explanations, no decrying what had gotten him into this mess, no judgement. Just, _what do you need?_

“Could you hand me the tweezers?” Percy pointed above his head. The adrenaline had worn off and his limbs felt like they were made of lead. “They’re up there. On the counter.” 

Paul nodded and got to his feet. He washed his hands at the sink, which Percy thought was a little odd considering the simplicity of the request, then fetched the hand towel, tweezers, and disinfectant from the counter-top. He lowered himself to sit cross-legged beside Percy, but didn’t hand him the tools. “May I?” Paul asked, pointing to Percy’s mangled arm.

Percy just stared at him for a few moments, baffled, then managed to collect himself enough to hold out his arm. Paul looked over the injuries briefly, then set to work carefully removing the glass shards without a word. 

Percy’s heart pounded and he felt frozen in place as nerves twisted in his gut, but after two battle-like bursts of adrenaline, he was too exhausted to be truly afraid. Still, Paul’s silence and the frown pinching his lips worried Percy. Sharp, seaglass-green eyes flicked over the older man, taking stock of his body language and assessing it as a force of habit born from his time living with Gabe and honed by his demigod training. Paul was concentrating, Percy decided, not angry. But as the silence stretched on, Percy found it more and more unbearable. 

“You know first aid?” Percy asked, just to break the silence. It was maybe a question he should have asked before he let Paul dig around his arm with tweezers. All demigods were trained in basic-to-advanced first aid, wilderness survival, and other such skills that they needed to survive dangerous quests and battles with monsters, but he sometimes forgot that such skills weren’t as necessary for mortals and few of them knew them.

“I’m a teacher,” Paul replied. “It’s highly encouraged for teachers to be first aid certified.”

Percy almost asked how common it was for high school students to end up injured in English class. Then he remembered how he got in this state and decided to keep his mouth shut. 

Somehow, though, Paul seemed to have a similar idea. “Monster fight?”

Percy winced, and Paul murmured an apology, thinking it was the glass. It wasn’t. “Not the Greek kind.” Percy cast his eyes away. Monsters were easier to deal with. All he had to do was whip out Riptide and stab them into dust, and they’d be sent back to Tartarus and any damage from the fight would be covered up by the Mist. 

Paul glanced at him as he dropped another shard of glass onto the towel. “So, this isn’t demigod-related?”

A huff of breath rushed out Percy’s nose, like a ghost of a laugh devoid of any real humor. “Not really.” Only tangentially.

Paul was quiet for a few moments. “You don’t need to tell me, if you don’t want to.” 

Percy turned the words over in his mind, searching for any passive-aggressive resentment in them. He found none. Somehow that only made him feel more guilty. “I feel like you have a right to know, at this point,” he said dryly, gesturing to where Paul was tending to his bloody arm. 

“Not necessarily,” Paul said, his words as careful as his hands were. “You’re nearly a legal adult. You’re entitled to your privacy.” He set down the tweezers and rummaged around in the first aid kit for the gauze and bandages. “And I know there are things in your life that I can never hope to truly comprehend. I understand if you want to keep certain things to yourself. It’s not my business to pry. Nor is it your obligation to feel forced to share ー with me, that is. With your mother?” He chuckled a little. “Well, that’s between you and her.” 

“Are you going to tell her?” Percy asked, suddenly worried. 

Paul’s lips pinched together in a thin line and he exhaled slowly through his nose. Percy’s hand fisted against his knee as if to physically restrain himself from leaping out the window.

“No,” Paul said at long last. “Like I said, that’s between you and your mother.” He snipped the medical tape with a pair of scissors. “But I think you should talk to her about what happened.” 

“I don’t want to worry her,” Percy said. 

“She’ll be more worried if you don’t,” Paul pointed out. He looked up and tapped his eye. “Not sure if you’ve seen, but you’ve got quite the shiner there. And she’s a smart lady; I doubt that’s something she would fail to notice.”

Percy looked away, his heart sinking. He knew Paul was right. And he knew it wouldn’t _just_ be his mom who worried, if he didn’t say anything.

Paul got to his feet and rummaged around above the sink for a few minutes, returning with a damp washcloth and a handheld mirror. He offered both to Percy and tapped his own nose in explanation. Percy was grateful that he gave him the space to clean up his face himself; having someone help would probably just make him feel like a child. 

While Percy dabbed at the dried blood around his nose and assessed the state of the bone ー probably broken, but nothing too severe, and it wasn’t his first broken nose ー Paul disposed of the glass shards and cleaned up the medical waste from Percy’s self-suturing up on the counter. When everything was all cleaned up, the older man sat back down on the floor with his back to the bathtub, facing Percy, but not directly in front of him. He had one leg stretched out, foot near Percy’s hip, while his other leg was propped up with his arms looped around it, almost a mirror of Percy who had his knees drawn up to his chest. He didn’t stare at him, which Percy appreciated as much as he appreciated the quiet company. 

“I got in a fight with some kids from one of my old schools,” Percy said finally. “I was walking home from school, and I ran into them. Tried to keep my head down, but they cornered me in an alley.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, frustrated at himself for not realizing that street was a dead-end. That’s what he got for being adventurous and taking a different route home from school. He sighed and went on. “They used the same old insults, same old taunts. Called me stupid, retarded, illiterate… All the same shit they used to call me back at Yancy. It… it shouldn’t have hurt ー I _know_ I’m not stupid, I know why I have trouble in school, and I know that _they_ wouldn’t last two seconds in any of the battles I’ve been inー” Percy cut himself off, hating the way his words had turned angry and bitter. He had seen in Tartarus what could happen if he let his anger and resentment control him. 

Percy took a deep, steadying breath. Paul said nothing, like he could tell Percy wasn’t finished but needed a moment to compose himself. Once again, he felt a surge of appreciation for the older man’s patience and understanding. 

He went on when he was ready. “I don’t fight mortals. But they attacked me, and I defended myself. They had me outnumbered, though, and it’s not like I could use my sword around them.” He lifted his bandaged arm. “Someone had left an old busted-up window propped up against the wall of the alley. One of them pushed me into it. Another punched me in the face. The other pulled some stupid little pocket knife on me and managed to get under my guard,” he explained, pointing to the cut he had stitched up himself. 

“Anyway, the sound of glass breaking got people’s attention and they ran pretty fast after that. I did too. Didn’t see where they went.” He lifted his good hand (if split knuckles could be called “good”, but it wasn’t as bad as the arm that had met the glass) and let it fall into his lap in something like a half-hearted shrug. “And I don’t have any ambrosia left over from Camp, so I guess I’m just on my own for healing.” He wasn’t sure if he had ever mentioned Camp Half-Blood’s ambrosia and its demigod-healing qualities to Paul, or if his mom had. Whatever, he was too exhausted to care. Paul taught Classics in his English classes, he could probably figure it out.

“We can ice your nose,” Paul offered. “Might not be as good as this ‘ambrosia’ but at least it’s something.” 

“Yeah,” Percy slumped back against the sink cabinet. He felt drained. The idea of getting up to go to the kitchen felt like a Herculean task. Which was stupid, because he had done plenty of much more exhausting tasks as a demigod. 

“I think you’re very brave, Percy,” Paul said quietly. 

Percy snorted dryly and shook his head with a wry grin. “I’ve done some brave things, or stupid things depending on who you ask. I wouldn’t say that was one of the brave ones.” 

“I didn’t mean the fight,” Paul said, then quickly added, “although yes, that is brave too.” He looked at him seriously. “It takes courage to stand up for yourself, and to act mercifully toward those who have hurt you. I have no doubt you could have put your swordsmanship skills to use and defeated them, but you chose to take the higher road. That took courage. I imagine it also took courage to tell me the truth of what happened.” He glanced at the first aid kit. “It takes quite a bit of courage to even do stitches on yourself with no anesthetic. And that’s the _least_ of what you’ve done.” 

Percy chuckled. “I’m used to that. I’ve faced a lot worse than stitches.” 

Paul nodded and looked at him with such honesty that Percy almost had to look away. “And that, perhaps, is the bravest thing about you ー that you continue to face each day, even with all the burdens you’ve been forced to carry.” He smiled a little sadly. “Perhaps it’s not my place to say, but… Percy, I’m so proud of you. And I know your mother is, too.” 

Percy _did_ have to look away, then, instead staring down at the rip in the knee of his jeans that started to blur as tears pricked at his eyes. It didn’t help that the reaction made the bruised bridge of his nose smart with pain, and he desperately tried to push down the emotion. At first, it was because he didn’t want Paul to see him cry. Then he realized that wouldn’t be so terrible, and he knew Paul wouldn’t think any less of him. But the point remained that crying would hurt his broken nose like hell, and that was something he would rather avoid. 

“Thanks,” Percy managed to say, once he had gotten the lump in his throat to disperse. He didn’t know what else to say ー how to put a lifetime of absent or abusive father figures into words and tell Paul that, whether he believed it or not, he was probably the best thing to happen to his mother’s _and_ his lives. Maybe he would figure it out once he wasn’t several ounces short on blood. He took a deep breath and looked up to meet Paul’s eyes, offering him a wobbly sort of smile. “Can… can you help me to the kitchen? I could really use that ice pack.”

“Of course,” Paul got to his feet and held out a hand to help him up, his smile warm and honest. “I’ve got you.”

For once, Percy allowed himself to believe him.

**Author's Note:**

> Paul is the best underrated character in the PJO universe and this is a hill I would die on.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you enjoyed it


End file.
